KIDS
When the idea first struck him, Geroge wanted to laugh at its absurdity but quickly found that he couldn't. If he could have mustered a laugh, it would have been the laugh of a man who knows better. The laugh of a man who has been chosen by a higher purpose, and is terrified by what he has to do next. A wrathful God he could handle. The kind of God who punishes you because he loves you. Wrath, violence, sacrifice, It was all a pretty basic concept George learned how to handle before he left grade school. But an indifferent God, one who saw all of this suffering and simply didn't give a shit, that terrified George to the center of his being. Wrathful. Indifferent. Whatever the case might be, there would be no more maybes. Tonight, he would know for sure. George’s cell phone buzzed, bringing him back to attention. When the dark screen lit up, he saw it was already 4:47 PM, ready in just five microwave minutes. Sliding off his headset, not bothering to say goodbye to anyone, George made his way out to the car. As he moved slowly down the hall towards the elevators, He could feel his train of thought racing deeper into paranoia. This parking garage had seven cameras on this level, George knew that. But what exactly was he so paranoid about? It's not like he was some blood-covered lunatic, and there wasn't anybody, co-worker or otherwise who had any reason to be suspicious, right? Would she see this coming? Would Victor? was his subtlety, being undone by his sleepwalking self?
His paranoid Thoughts seemed to carry him away like a curl of rising smoke, and when he came back into his own body, he'd already parked the car In the driveway with no memory of the ride home. When these little spots of missing time first started happening, he was surprised just how little it had scared him. Bumbling. Frankenstein's monster was too absurd to be anything but one big joke. As far as he knew, nobody had the slightest clue he was taking his little involuntary vacations on his best days. Everything was one big cosmic joke and none of it felt real. But on his worst days, his life was full of endless, crushing details he could never laugh away. Something is seriously wrong here, You know that, don't you? Yes, yes, of course. But isn't this fun?
George hopped out of the car, not bothering to Lock it, and made his way to the front door. Listening carefully for any signs of life before heading inside, He slithered to the basement stairs. As he went, George tried to remember a time before all of this. Before the constant idiotic blabbering in his head, before he had met Mary, and before she had given birth to that thing they named Victor. For some reason above all else, he thought back to when he was just a little kid in Mr. L's class. As far as teachers go at Elk Falls Middle, Mr. L was hands down George’s favourite. Mr. L would sometimes tell stories that took up an entire class, He had a lovely gallery of art students made for him, and best of all was just how damn likable he was. As far as teachers go, he was the only one George could ever imagine being a student at some point in their lives. One of Mr. L’s many charms was his countless old man sayings, even if quite a lot of them had packed their bags and left Georges's memory when his mind had started to crack. One of Mr. L’s sayings George would never forget, even without the clear roll of drop sheet plastic to jog his memory. Whenever he wanted to make sure you were listening, Mr. L would ask you a simple question after telling you all the important stuff. Are we clear as mud? At first, the kids didn't know what to say. It was the first half of a knock-knock joke without the comfort of a who's there to lean on. Thankfully, Mr. L would only leave you hanging once before you knew the answer by heart. When Mr. L asked if you were clear as mud, you responded, eagerly with Mud’s not clear and neither are you, Mr. Linthson! And who exactly was the mud now? Was it already too late for George even then?
The way George had met Mary was nothing that would excite any romantic. Both of them had been passed around a few times in high school. Both of them didn't want to get dating apps but did anyway, and on their first date, they both laughed at the thought that they'd shared the same high school without ever really noticing each other. Soon enough, Geroge was joking about getting married and running away together.
They had been married, yes, but in the end, George and Mary had never lived anywhere Elk Falls. Do not pass, go. Do not collect $200. It would take a couple of years for that feeling of stagnancy to become noticeable for both of them, and they both quietly started to feel stuck. About four years after their wedding, Mary suddenly transformed into a young puppy in desperate need of a good long walk, and it was a transformation he felt she never really came back from. She told him they should go out to the lake again, like when they were kids. She told him they should go and visit her sister in Oregon and he should take some time off work. She told him they should take a romantic cruise anywhere he wanted, whenever he wanted, always with the same pointless hope. The problem was, he didn't want to. Even then, Even before Victor, he was bored with her. George’s detachment, paranoia, and confusion had always been growing like cancer. There was a time when he thought Mary could help him fix that feeling, but now George knew better. He was that feeling. George’s whole life had been one slow, sanity-ripping crescendo of paranoia and self-doubt, and now he had the queer feeling he just might be crossing the finish line. This would be Custer's last stand if Mary ever found out. And how could she not?
Georgie Porgie Pudding Pie kissed the girls and made them cry. He kept waiting through the stale Gray months, for Mary to give up hope and finally leave him. Right when he swore she would finally break, he was amazed when she asked him to start a family. He'd heard countless parents tell him of the wonders of child-rearing, the unrivalled bliss of holding your beautiful baby for the first time. Even when these same parents talked about changing shit-filled diapers and waking up at 3:00 AM, there was always a little hint of a smile on their faces. He wouldn't give it too much hope. He didn't have much hope left to give, but he was honestly excited. Honestly hopeful, Mary had noticed the difference. Sex was no longer a weekly item on the To Do List of chores, It became spontaneous, and passionate, as if they were on their second honeymoon. Just over a year later, a week before his son's supposed delivery date, they were racing to the hospital, considering he'd been woken at 3:00 AM. (How very selfish of her, George) he was making good time. He had helped Mary into the back seat, not bothering with his and her seat belts this evening, and made his way to the hospital as quickly and carefully as he could.
He made sure to stay no more than 10 miles over the speed limit, and as he drove, he couldn't help but look back at Mary's face in the rearview mirror. It was covered in the war painting of painful fear and hopeful excitement at the same time. This is how Mary was and would always be to him, going through unspeakable pain with a darkly hopeful smile. Soon enough, he would be right back to not noticing her at all.
At 4:37 AM on Thursday, Victor was born, and by 4:38 am on Thursday, he was weeping like a wounded animal. He wasn't the only one, of course. Crying in a delivery room is almost an industry standard, but he hoped his tacked-on smile would hide the way he was feeling even before he got to hold his son. He knew it was wrong. There was some kind of a mistake, and this was all another waking nightmare. That sound, that thing, the crying naked thing His wife was still cradling, It repulsed him. It was totally unrecognizable, totally inhuman, and and and nobody knew it but him. If you were to X-ray the little bundle of flesh, would there be anything inside he would recognize, or any doctor for that matter? Of course not. There was nothing inside this thing but alien lumps of flesh, with thousands of thick black ropes connecting everything like squiggly patched lines of tar on old asphalt. He had no way of knowing this, of course, but he knew it anyway.
As a kid, he hit her tails of changelings, creatures who would steal perfectly healthy babies and take their place as a kind of dark doppelganger. He wasn't crazy enough to accuse some ancient evil fairy, not yet, but he knew instantly that thing would never be his kid. Not now, not later, not ever. And for the first time in his life, he lost just over an hour on the way home. Coming back to reality, he checked his watch. 5:23 PM Good. Victor came home around six on Fridays, and Mary wouldn't be home at all tonight. For some reason, he couldn't be bothered to remember. Perfect. So far it was all going perfectly. With all the plastic sheeting in place and eye bolts properly secured, he dug for the small black leather case that had belonged to an old camera he had purchased years ago, but it managed to fit all of his tools rather nicely. It made him think of some crazed Dr. lugging it around while making house calls, and he couldn't help but smile as he pulled the bag’s Flashy Copper Zipper open.
When making his shopping list, he was surprised just how easy it was to get everything he needed. He would have settled for a simple hobby knife, but he was delighted to find you could buy a pack of 10 disposable scalpels (That's Blade and all) for 30 bucks, plus shipping on Amazon. The rest of his little collection, funny enough, had been entirely purchased at Dollarama.
On his first trip, He stuck strictly to the medical supplies, rubbing alcohol, gauze, latex gloves, face masks, and even a small prepackaged first aid kit designed for car glove boxes. When the woman at the till asked if he was restocking the old first aid kit, he smiled and told her she was one hell of a good guesser. His second trip was a little more equipment-based. Garbage bag, zip ties, a few carabiners, those trusty metal eye bolts currently hanging from the ceiling, duct tape, RAID spider spray, and finally a plastic paint tray to catch any Drips from the wet instruments. This time, the clerk, and disinterested kid, barely spoke a word. That was just fine by him.
The dust still settling on his makeshift OR and the unopened can of spider spray in his right hand, He made his way back upstairs. The paranoia he had been swimming in was completely replaced with childish excitement, and the next 15 minutes or so before Victor came home were almost blissful. He had a beer, watched some TV and kept peeking out the front window, hoping to see Anita's white van pull up through the fog.
2.
No matter the swim meets ended, Victor always seemed to leave the pool feeling disappointed. At first, When his mother had come to him worried her son would be a social outcast if he wasn't involved in at least one after-school activity, Victor had tried his best to protest. All his life he had been more of an indoor kid than an outdoor one, and as far as he knew, his parents never really had a problem with it. Encouraged it even. Instead of their precious son being outside looking for cigarette butts to smoke or other kids to get in trouble with, Victor had surrounded himself with books and movies almost as soon as he could. Friends were nice, of course, they were nice, but deep down Victor was just as introverted as his dead-eyed dad. That's something neither his mom ignored seemed or wanted to notice, But maybe they had noticed it more than he thought. Maybe this whole time, they thought he was just lazy or that kids didn't want to hang out with him. Possibly yes, but he didn't give his mom that much credit. Most likely, the whole thing was stupidly simple.
His mother (and her poor ears) had been taking a beating for months about all the little quarterbacks and 1st basemen whose bikes could be seen in lawns all over his neighbourhood To him, it seemed like every boy in town called somebody coach, and he supposed his mom had finally gotten tired of being the odd man out in the offspring department. In short, there'd be no way out of this. No point in the protest. So what was the easiest group he could join?
After a brief and urgent thumb through his mental Rolodex came up with two possibilities. Mike was already in robotics as of last year, and he'd never really had any difficulty when it came to science or math. At the very least, his friend would be there, and if he truly hated it, he could just refuse to go, plain and simple. With that out of the way, that left Plan B swimming. Swimming, as far as he knew, was pretty damn easy. Quick splash around in the pool for an hour or two after school. It might be kind of nice. And again, if he hated it, he would just ditch it. Not a real home run of a plan, but on the fly, It was the best one he had. After his turn, listening to his mom and waiting to talk, he pitched the robotic idea with a slight, hopeful wince. After a brief pause, he heard his mother's always sing-songy voice quietly murmuring. “No, no… that that wouldn't do” Well Fuck, here goes nothing. Hoping he didn't look as glum as he felt, he pitched Plan B and watched his mother gleefully devour it the way a snake swallows a large rat. And so, before she had even said anything, he knew it was official. Her son, outcast No more, would be a swimmer.
Whatever misconceptions he had about swimming didn't last more than a week. It wasn't the meandering vacation he had hoped it would be, but Coach Tanner made sure it was far from any kind of military boot camp. It wasn't just that swimming was physically demanding that bothered him. It was the way it had gotten inside his head. If he had picked any other sport in the world, basketball, tennis, football, soccer, it would be a simple matter of teams against teams.
If you happened to lose a game, you all lost together. With swimming, there was no such luxury. You would establish a time for each swim, quite literally the fastest time you could set, and spend the rest of your career trying to go even faster. A constant competition against yourself. Quite a few people couldn't handle it. Even more people tried to pretend they could, just for Coach Tanner. When he later told those few that he wouldn't take it personally if they wanted out, they would leave crying and thanking him. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't for everyone, but he was just stubborn enough and competitive enough to keep coming back. He knew he could do better, and there was a part of him that would never rest until he had a new fastest time. Perhaps that's why he was so disappointed. Leaving the pool today, he was shy of his best time by three seconds. 3 measly seconds. Less than a foot.
Victor tried not to take this kind of stuff home with him, but the whole way back in Anita's van, rolling through the thick fog, that was all he could think about. As he saw the smoky outline of his front lawn come into focus, he tried to clear his head. Who would be home right now? Dad's car was in the driveway, but the little blue bug that could only belong to his mother was nowhere. Insight If his mom could be most accurately described as annoying, his dad could be described as almost non-existent.
A king of one word, answers the Duke of feigned interest and quietly muffled disgust. The Prince of Please holds while we connect Your call.
All his life his dad treated him as some estranged relative at a family reunion. Some, and her uncle you wish you could forget was ever born. His strategy for dealing with his ghostly roommate of a dad was pretty simple. Fight indifference with indifference. He wouldn't give a shit. He wouldn't give a shit right back. Hopping out of the van and making his way towards his front door, His expectations were pretty low. He'd be surprised if his dad even had a single word to offer before he could climb the stairs to his room, and that was fine by him. He didn't have much to say anyway. Suddenly, he felt something he couldn't ignore. Something was wrong, something was off, something wasn't…
No, no, no. He was just being crazy. It was this dear old dad Dopey, and he knew he had a 5050 shot of his dad even being conscious in the 1st place before he opened the door. He chuckled to himself one last time, finally forgetting about those measly 3 seconds. “That you kiddo?” Victor’s dad purred from whatever shadowy corner of the house he was hiding in. The fact that his dad had spoken to him wasn't what had caught him off guard, it was the fact that he sounded excited. Before he could even really think of just how bizarre this whole thing was, he heard himself saying “Yeah, yeah, I got some homework to finish up, so I think I'm going to head…” but that was as far as he got before the world turned a sickly shade of blood Clotted orange. Before his eyes, nose and mouth were full of some horrible stinging spray. Before he felt one hand over his mouth and another wrapping around his chest, dragging him to the basement. The last thing he heard was the muffled sound of his dad's faraway laughter.
3
His can of spider spray had worked just as he had hoped it would, and getting the gangly kid-shaped thing onto his operating table barely knocked the wind out of him. His plan for the kid was fairly simple. He knew for a fact that Victor, and whatever he may be, wasn't human. It had managed to fool everyone else into trusting it, into loving it even, But he knew better. He knew what he had to do, knew it was up to him to show everyone the black alien inside of this parasitic little monster. He would go that far, but not if he didn't have to. He would start small. He grabbed one of Victor's hands with his own, holding it up to the light and examined all the countless lines and folds on the thing's skin. When he checked his fingerprints he could see their shapes slowly whirling and shifting like slow-moving water. It's a good sign, George's nothing human about that whatsoever. Removing the flimsy protective cover off of his scalpel, Slowly, he made his first incision on the creature's middle finger. A few seconds later he watched a single drop of black oil roll lazily down his finger until it hit the plastic sheeting.
Then a second, then a third, the sound of the world's slowest metronome. Those few falling drops were all he needed to know, but he knew that nobody would believe him based on a few drops of blood. Even if he collected a gallon of this stuff, they needed to see it the way he saw it. To know without a doubt exactly what this kid-shaped creature was made out of. And the easiest way to do that would be an autopsy.
On TV, they always started with a deep Y-shaped cut to the chest, but this would be a lot different than anything on TV. On TV The blood would already be drained and vacuumed out, and he knew this would be messy no matter how much he had planned. He hoped the big orange bucket would capture most of it when he slit the thing's throat. He would simply leave it alone and wait for gravity to clear out as much of the black blood as he could. When he made that second cut, the last cut Victor would ever feel, it all went exactly how we hoped it would. There was no scream, no cry. The thing didn't even open its eyes, it just let out one long, gurgling sigh that mixed with the sound of gushing liquid hitting hard orange plastic, not with a bang, but with a whimper, 13 years of thoughts and feelings were emptying themselves onto the floor. He sat there, watching the bucket get more and more full, and lost time again Somewhere down in his windowless little workshop. When he came back into himself all the black sludge had stopped flowing already. Instead of grabbing a used scalpel out of the paint tray, he grabbed a fresh one and laid it on the table. Using the safety scissors, he cut Victor's shirt into pieces, leaving his pale chest exposed. When he started his work, There was blood, some grotesque black clots closer to his stomach, but that was the only recognizable part of his son he would see all day. All of the creature's pale Gray organs seem to be a random collection of tumours and growths, often not connecting themselves to anything at all. Where two lungs should have been, He found one large, deflated funeral balloon of flesh. In place of a heart, sat a rugged square with steel edges, all some mad God's cruel idea of what a human being should look like. It was, to him at least, fascinating. He kept working, going deeper and moving faster until he could say without a shadow of a doubt. There was never anything human about his son at all. He did his best not to lose control, but he was having so much fun he couldn't help himself. Hey, if we're being messy, why not make a real mess? By the time he was done with his work, his son opened up like a grotesque flower in full bloom. The room was a mess. The floor was full of black, zigzagging footprints tracking blood all around the table. Some of the random hunks of flesh had been fully removed, some of them he had tried to put back, and some were tossed carelessly on the ground to mingle with the black trail of footprints. The walls and even the ceiling were scattered with a fine black mist of blood spray.
To him, the whole scene had an undeniable dark beauty to it. The satisfaction of knowing the artist who worked in this particular studio wasn't afraid to get messy when his passion struck. From where he was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, he could hear the sound of her keys at the door before it even began to open. This is it, men. The show's over—Mary's home. Honey? Victor. Hello? Mary called out, only to be met with Silence. Should he say something? How long until she wandered down here by herself? Well, we do have something to show her after all, George, so why don't we invite her in? All right, Very funny, boys. Another beat of silence before he finally found his courage. Down here, babe. I want to show you something. Should I bring Victor or? No, no, no. I already took care of him. Babe. Things will be better now, I promise. Listening to her footsteps, following them from the front closet to the top of the stairs. He waited. He listened as she opened the door. He listened as the stairs creaked under her weight when she turned the corner, and he listened to her small gasp as soon as they locked eyes.
“Jesus, are you.. what happened?” On her best days, she was pale, but right now she was porcelain white and couldn't look away. “It's OK now, honey. Everything is going to be fine. We can finally be alone again.” She ran past him, making her away over the last 10 steps, two at a time, until she could finally see the whole picture. Until she could finally see exactly what he had been planning these last few months. When he looked at the basement, it was all an unrecognizable smear of black with dark lumps of otherworldly flesh. When Mary looked at the basement for the first time, She recognized every single piece of her son
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